2018 Reading List

  Lately i've been doing a lot of reading.  Possibly too much, but hey, to read i don't have to move those pesky knees.
  Anyway, i've compiled a list of many of the books i've read this year, with a few scattered comments.   Hope you enjoy!

  • Diana Wallis Taylor:
    • Mary: Chosen of God* http://dianawallistaylor.com/books/mary-chosen-of-god/ This is the book she was writing on when i was working on my Ruth project. i can see her improvement as a writer, and i like the pacing of this:
      • The first half is about Mary and Joseph's courtship to their return from Egypt
      • about 15 pages in the middle is devoted to the trip to the Jerusalem Passover when Jesus was 12
      • a little over 20 pages deals with family changes as the years go on. (Joseph's death is handled in only two pages.)
      • The final 130 pages are devoted to Mary's feelings, i like the pacing of this, from the beginning of Jesus' ministry through the very earliest postAscension days of the Church

  • Elizabeth Berg, The Handmaid and the Carpenter
  • Angela Elwell Hunt,
  • CS Lewis
  • Mary Connealy, one of my favorite authors
    • Montana Marriages series: Montana Rose, The Husband Tree; Wildflower Bride.. It seems like i should say something about my absolute favorite series. It's funny, ridiculous in places even. i love the varied examples of good Christian marriages - NOT one size fits all!
    • some of the stories in the Lassoed by Marriage anthology by various authors, including Connealy. i enjoyed revisiting one character, born in one of the Montana Marriages books, all grown up with his own story. "Colorado Coincidence" is a great story, though it ends too abruptly, and the last story of the book is just exactly right.
    • Lassoed in Texas. Two of the three books involve the historical situation of orphans and the orphan train. This is the trilogy which begins this trilogy of trilogies:
      • Petticoat Ranch, was a Carol Award Finalist, and my very least favorite book of the nine. Since it's first in the series, it provides backgrounds on many of the characters i love. It also shows how Connealy has improved her skills over the years.
      • Calico Canyon, a Christy Award Finalist and a Carol Award Finalist. She had me hooked from the opening sentence, where the "Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse" returned to class late, through the schoolmarm leaping through her window to hide in their dad's wagon to escape a worse threat, and the first winter of the couple's (initially) unwelcome marriage. They claimed they "accidentally" got married - and i think they did!
      • Gingham Mountain, in which the Canyon's former schoolmarm goes stir crazy and her husband is reduced to comic lout, follows said schoolmarm's sister and her involvement with the guy who collects orphans to give them a good home. She can't believe that, her own experience making such a situation so remote a possibility that she discounts the continuing evidence of the townspeople and her own eyes that he's really the best thing that's ever happened to the kids.
    • The Sophie's Daughters series. This continues the stories of now-grown Mandy, Beth, and Sally, whose mom was the focus of Petticoat Ranch, and who appeared in Calico Canyon and Gingham Mountain.
      • Doctor in Petticoats, possibly my original introduction to Connealy. The historical issues in this one are the horrors of caring for the battle-wounded, and the prejudice of the times against women as doctors.
      • Wrangler in Petticoats: Daughter Sally is the only survivor of an ambush solely because she refused to change her cowboy menswear to a dress. The toughest of the sisters, she is rescued by an artist, surely the opposite of tough.  i can identify with the artistic desires of this guy.
      • Sharpshooter in Petticoats: No one had much worried that Mandy's husband hadn't met with her dad's approval - they all knew no one would. And he looked the very model of a good husband. Of which he was the total opposite. Mandy's story weaves in and out of the earlier two books. Now widowed, Mandy needs to survive the outlaws gunning for her while keeping her loved ones at a safe distance. But the guy who will become husband number two isn't buying that last part.
    • Agatha Christie: You knew she had to be here
After the Funeral 
13 at Dinner
Black Coffee 
Murder at Hazelmoor
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House 
Cards on the Table
Sad Cypress 
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Halloween Party 
 Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library 
The Moving Finger
A Murder is Announced 
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram's Hotel Nemesis
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys 
The Clocks
Three Act Tragedy 
Toward Zero
Sparkling Cyanide 
 Endless Night
Crooked House 
The Pale Horse
Passenger to Frankfort 
The Mysterious Mr. Quinn
The Harlequin Tea Set 
Parker Pyne Investigates
4:50 From Paddington 
The Mirror Cracked
Third Girl 
Dead Man's Folly
The Mousetrap and Other Stories
* Specifics of the pacing of Taylor's Mary:
  • The book is 59 chapters; 315 pp long, with p157 center page.
  • The first 140 pages are from Gabriel's announcement to the family's return from Egypt
  • ch28 pp151-159 Passover when Jesus was 12
  • ch29 pp 160-164 losing and finding Jesus after the Passover
  • Pages 165-186 summarize family changes over the years: deaths, marriages, births.
  • Other "Mary" novels draw out Joseph's death, Here, Taylor covers it on only two partial pages, 168-169
  • The rest of the book, chapters 39-59, pp186-315, concern Jesus' ministry & Mary's feelings
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